Tucker also contradicted one of the key points made by the prosecution in it’s attempt to prove that Jacko used heavy-handed tactics to control the family after a damaging 2003 Britishmade documentary aired, featuring the boy he is accused of molesting.

The prosecution claimed that Jacko took control of their lives and whisked them off to Miami where they were to participate in a damage-control press conference.

But Tucker said yesterday the family decided to go to Miami on their own to hunt Jackson down – and that they talked him into giving them a ride to the Sunshine State on a jet he chartered.

“Gavin called and they wanted to find Michael,” he said. “They wanted to go out of town to find Michael. They wanted to go to Miami.”

Tucker first became close to the family in 2000, when the comic met the boy at the Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles, where the child had taken a comedy class.

He said that by the March of 2003 trip to Florida, he had become suspicious of them – and he said he told Jackson to watch out for their schemes.

Jacko allegedly molested the boy while he stayed at the singer’s Neverland mansion in the days after the Miami trip.

On cross-examination Tucker was extraordinarily combative and went so far as to deny his phone records,

This truculence betrayed a pro-Jacko bias in the witness, an expert said.

After Tucker, lead Jacko attorney Tom Mesereau rested the case. Santa Barbara County Prosecutors immediately began their rebuttal.

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THE PEOPLE VS. MICHAEL JACKSON: DAY 60

WHAT THE JURY HEARD: Comedian Chris Tucker called Jacko’s young accuser “cunning.”

WHAT HE WORE: The Pop King donned a regal golden vest with a pattern of vines and silver piping. On his dark

jacket he wore a crest with a gold person riding a silver horse.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: ‘He was really smart, cunning at times. But I always overlooked it.’ – Chris Tucker on the boy Jacko allegedly molested